The Burgomaster's Wife — Complete eBook

He had been standing opposite to her, as if spellbound,
listening blissfully to the lofty flight of his own
words. Trembling with passionate emotion, he
yet restrained himself until she had raised her eyes
from his lines and lifted the book, then his power
of resistance flew to the winds and, fairly beside
himself, he exclaimed: “Maria, my sweet
wife!”

“Wife?” echoed in her breast like a cry
of warning, and it seemed as if an icy hand clutched
her heart. The intoxication passed away, and as
she saw him standing before her with out-stretched
arms and sparkling eyes, she shrank back, a feeling
of intense loathing of him and her own weakness seized
upon her and, instead of throwing the book aside and
rushing to meet him, she tore it in halves, saying
proudly: “Here are your verses, Junker
von Dornburg; take them with you.” Then,
maintaining her dignity by a strong effort, she continued
in a lower, more gentle tone, “I shall remember
you without this book. We have both dreamed; let
us now wake. Farewell! I will pray that God
may guard you. Give me your hand, Georg, and
when you return, we will bid you welcome to our house
as a friend.”

With these words Maria turned away from the Junker
and only nodded silently, when he exclaimed:
“Past! All past!”

CHAPTER XXXI.

Georg descended the stairs in a state of bewilderment.
Both halves of the book, in which ever since the wedding
at Delft he had written a succession of verses to
Maria, lay in his hand.

The light of the kitchen-fire streamed into the entry.
He followed it, and before answering Barbara’s
kind greeting, went to the hearth and flung into the
fire the sheets, which contained the pure, sweet fragrance
of a beautiful flower of youth.

“Foolish paper!” he answered. “Have
no fear. At the utmost it might weep and put
out the flames. It will be ashes directly.
There go the sparks, flying in regular rows through
the black, charred pages. How pretty it looks!
They appear, leap forth and vanish—­like
a funeral procession with torches in a pitch-dark
night. Good-night, poor children—­good-night,
dear songs! Look, Frau Barbara! They are
rolling themselves up tightly, convulsively, as if
it hurt them to burn.”

“What sort of talk is that?” replied Barbara,
thrusting the charred book deeper into the fire with
the tongs. Then pointing to her own forehead,
she continued: “One often feels anxious
about you. High-sounding words, such as we find
in the Psalms, are not meant for every-day life and
our kitchen. If you were my own son, you’d
often have something to listen to. People who
travel at a steady pace reach their goal soonest.”

“That’s good advice for a journey,”
replied Georg, holding out his hand to the widow.
“Farewell, dear mother. I can’t bear
it here any longer. In half an hour I shall turn
my back on this good city.”